Tag: choices

Categories
business personal

My three business credos

Birds on a wire; pigeons on a streetlight, NYC

Think I’m gonna stop writing for Technorati. No major single reason but a few little ones:

  1. Been crazy busy with work and those articles take me longer than anticipated to write – plus they make change requests that eat up more time
  2. Kinda feel like there’s no real support for articles since they run them all equally without any promotion
  3. There’s no means of auto-publishing. This I understand cause they want some editorial control but it has ramifications for me.

My three business credos, which’ve enabled me to not have a “real job” for decades yet still live comfortably, are:

  1. Underpromise, overdeliver.
  2. Save 10% of everything you ever make.
  3. Be a man of your word

It’s the last one that causes my friction with Technorati. Said to readers that we’d publish weekly on Fridays and yet, no; the editors manually put up each entry so articles’re published when an editor gets around to it.  They completely missed publishing last week.

It’s not as if I think people’re waiting with bated breath for my next installment; it’s that I said I do it.

When I say I’ll do something, it gets done. Even the people that can’t stand me know that if I give my word, it’s done.

Figure that my job’s to write and their job’s to publish. Y’can’t keep bugging someone to do what they’re supposta. Ergo, no more column.

It’s a shame – liked writing it and they weren’t bad fellas, just maybe understaffed.

Maybe I’ll move it somewhere else – any ideas?

———-

Him: How do we get to the museum?
Me: Just walk down Broadway and make a left at 79th Street. Keep walking straight until you see a large building that looks like a museum.

HG’s brother stayed over the other night and enjoyed hanging out in the city enough to stay for another dinner. We ended up doing Vietnamese the first night and pizza the next.

It’s nice when your significant other’s siblings and relatives aren’t jerks. Hoping they think that it’s nice that their sibling’s fiancee’s not a jerk too. It’s rough when that’s not the case.

Went to wrestle the other day and now my neck’s all jacked up; can barely move right now.

Man, the holidays’re gonna leave me a porker.

Location: at my desk, immobile
Mood: in pain
Music: I guess action speaks louder than words
YASYCTAI: Go to the doctor for a physical. (60 mins/1 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

What we do

Location: 9AM, getting choked on 27th
Mood: Certain
Music: there’s no cover for you, no prize when you’ve won

Less a political post, more a legal one regarding the mosque at ground zero here in NYC.

They have the legal right to have a build one there. People may not like it, but that’s the law and religious tolerance is what the country was built on – New York in particular.

Pardon the poor sound, super busy today…
YASYCTAI: Think about what it is we actually do. (60 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Numbers

Location: work with garbage trucks outside
Mood: busy!
Music: It’s a question of lust, it’s a question of trust

A couple in the NYC spring

Him: Dunno…it depends on how you count I guess. (thinking) Like 30 maybe?
Me: Jeez! (laughing) That why I don’t shake your hand, I might get the clap.
Him: So what I do?
Me: (sighing) Well, I suppose y’gotta just tell her the truth. I mean, you’re a whore, yeah. But it’s your past and what can y’really do about your past?
Him: Why does it matter so much? I don’t care.
Me: Y’don’t? What if she said sixty? Then you’d care a little, right?
Him: A little, sure. But cm’on…
Me: There’s always a price to pay. People always thought it was funny I didn’t hit every chance I had. But that’s cause I knew, someone might care someday. And this girlie cares. . So all y’can do is tell her that y’hope she can see past this but respects her decision if she can’t.

Hope it works out for him cause he finally found a girlie where it matters.

Off to New Joisey…

YASYCTAI: Update your address books. Some people gotta go. (120 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Stay Gold

Friends are the family you choose

Menu and candle at a bar with Jaymay singing

Cool thing about my city’s that you’re only $2.25 away from adventure. The lady was working so I called up a buddy.

Me: Jaymay’s playing downtown 8PM. You in?
Him: I dunno…
Me: You’re single. Never turn down an invitation.
Him: I’ll meet you there.

Jaymay in concert 2010.04.28

Great concert, seats and venue. She was super nice.

Me: So, I’m gonna do the stupid tourist thing and ask for your autograph.
Her: Do you have something to write on? (takes paper and writes)
Me: Are you writing something mean? (turning to girl next to her) Is she writing something mean, like in high school?
Her: (laughing and shaking my hand) Thanks for coming, Logan.

Jaymay autograph

Have more stories for you; saw a great flick, baked a ham, and cut another friend loose.

Suppose I’ll tell mosta them to y’next week.

The cutting of the friend, I’ll tell you now. In a nutshell, your friends’re the family y’choose. When you’re a kid, y’choose them cause your mom tells you to or they got the locker nexta yours. Whatever.

But as an adult, there’s really only one reason to call someone your friend – Someone’s your friend if you can answer this in the affirmative: Will this person, to his/her own detriment, look out for me?

If you can, do the same for them. If you can’t, cut em loose.

Been alive now for 13,500 days. Only got 12,780 days left here.

No time to waste it on anyone whom I can’t answer that question in the affirmative. You don’t got that kinda time either, kid.

Location: two hours ago, Rockwood Music Hall
Mood: entertained
Music: winning you with words because I have no other way
YASYCTAI: Go on a (short) adventure. It’s $2.25 here; what’s it where you are? (180 mins/2 pts)
www.loganlo.com
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

My will’s done

Unreasonable people are dangerous

Dreary, rainy, NYC

Rarely do a political post, but here we are.

In Underworld, the final words of onea the main character’s, “My will is done, regardless.”

When Bush was president, he made some jaw-droppingly poor choices, yes. But he also quietly tripled AIDS help to Africa. $9 billion to a continent where the average adult survives on $1,968 annually. He deserves recognition of that. But the people that hate him don’t wanna hear it.

Now it’s flipped with Obama.

Consider the health care bill; the actual form of the bill’s closest to the one that Nixon – the prototypical Republican – tried and failed to pass in 1974.

It’s a universal health care paid by a sliding scale to help small business-owners and entrepreneurs, the backbone of the Republican party. Here’s Nixons plan in his own words.

The current plan’s shockingly similar.

And yet, cause it was introduced by the Democratic party, it’s denounced by the same party that introduced it in 1974.

Prejudice in its simplest form, has nuthin to do with race, creed, or religion.

It has to do with making an uninformed decision.

Not married to any one ideology, my decisions are made on the best available information at the time. It’s a reasoned way to live.

Stay away from those that are convinced they’re right. Cause reason has no place in their world. And unreasonable people are dangerous. Insert my fave Nietzsche quote here.

As for health care, don’t care that it’s a Republican bill passed by the Democratic party or vice versa. My will’s done, regardless.

Location: yest, 8PM getting drenched on 7th Ave
Mood: disappointed
Music: had a dream That I could fly

Categories
personal

The Acquisition of Knowledge

Location: in the heart of snow
Mood: still @#$@#$ sick
Music: I be the same when it all goes up I be the same when it all goes down

Was wondering why this song – which rocks – didn’t get much airplay. Then I saw the video. Least it’s a good song.

———-

Always kinda surprised by the people that marry their high school sweethearts.

If I married my high school/college girlfriend, woulda had one totally miserable person here in NYC.

I wouldn’tve been too happy either.

People go through massive changes from 15-21, again at 25-30, and once again at 30. The issue arises when one person changes one way and the other, another.

Elizabeth Gilbert said it best, Marriage is not a game for the young. Janeane Garofalo said someth’n like, imagine being married to the person who’s sole qualification was that they had the locker next to yours.

Been having a series of parallel conversations with three different people. Alla them’re very prouda the fact that they’re the same person as they were in the past.

But suppose y’believe the earth is flat. And despite all evidence to the contrary, your answer’s that you’ve always believed the world’s flat and that’s just how it’s gonna be.

(Insert your favourite George W. Bush joke here)

Said once that being grateful is the key to not being broken. Lemme add the coda that it’s also a willingness to say, OK, tell me why you think I’m wrong.

Put another way, why should the beliefs of a 16-year-old – when my buddy decided on something – rule the mind of a 35 year-old, his age now?

Are you better or worse if y’can say, I value the acquisition of knowledge above all else?

On yet another related point, become a man without a political party. The choice seems to be between a group enamored of their own ignorance and another inhibited by their own incompetence.

Gonna write in my mom as a candidate next year; if nuthin else, she’ll stay until the job gets done and save taxpayer money by bringing her own coffee.

YASYCTAI: Consider the data. (10 mins/1 pt)

Categories
business personal

Shutting down

Location: surrounded by computers and papers. Help me.
Mood: caffeinated!
Music: you wonder why they haven’t called when they said they’d call

Running Windows on a Mac
Me: I’m shutting down for the night.
Her: You just said that you’re shutting down for the night.
Him: I didn’t. (pause) Did I? (sighing) I gotta stop hanging out with computers.

Lately, my financial life’s been eat-what-you-kill. The problem’s that, after a long period of nuthin, y’grab everything that you can that might lead to scratch, even if most don’t ultimately pan out.

‘cept divorce. Won’t touch divorces. Cause, even though it’s not usually the case, one party’s got it in their head that, Who the #$@#$ are y’to tell me I’m not good enough?

No, won’t do divorces.

Y’wanna turn 10 craptastic apartments that share three bathrooms into four? Get the dude you love into the country legally? Register a trademark and sue someone? Raise $3 million in six weeks? Dual boot Windows on your mac so y’can save your Windows star ratings into iTunes and vice versa?

Yeah, I can do that for you.

Can work cheap, fast, or through – but y’can only pick two outta three.

YASYCTAI: Get back to finishing up that thesis/big project. (weeks/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Don’t really know

What’s the point of it all?

Cloudy day in NYC

Her: What was that sound!?
Me: Was working on something and the live power cable hit the fan.
Her: Logan! You’re going to kill yourself some day. (laughing) And your fly’s open.
Me: (slowly) Yes.

If something did happen to me, someone’d find that I’m 20% peanut butter (by weight, not volume). The remainder being rum.

Did y’have a nice Turkey Day? This year was different. Paul and WM hung up their club shoes to play board games by mine. Very Waltons.

The Professor wasn’t in town but I did see Johnny. With the exception of the Devil, he’s the onea the most dangerous men I know. That says a lot. And he brought his daughter over.

Her: I like you. You’re funny.
Me: I’ll take that as a compliment. Listen, keep your dad from punching me. He scares me.
Her: He scares me too!

This 25 year-old kid named Luis Armando Pena Soltren hijacked this plane from NY to Puerto Rico on 19681124 and went to Cuba where he spent the next 40 years in working as a day labourer.

At some point, he musta thought, What the #$@# did I do with my life?

So he came back an old man and’s sitting at some jail cell knowing that he’s thrown his life away on yet another thing that had the air of truth to it, but no real truth to it.

Him: 10 Million.
Me: Just this year?
Him: Yeah. (pause) Woulda made more if it wasn’t for this economy. Gotta fly back to China in three weeks.
Me: Why dontcha just sell it all? The factories, the buildings, all of it? Y’can spend time with your family, hang out with me. Start up that school y’always say you wanna do.
Him: (shakes head)
Me: Why not? You make more money than the pope but you’re miserable. What’s the pointa all that green if y’don’t get to see your family and I’m the only person in the world y’trust?
Him: Don’t really know.


Nietzxche was right, your convictions’re dangerous things. The choices remain the same: Change your map; Change your reality; or Keep crying.

Better work out. Next year, doubt I’ll have his daughter there to protect me.

Location: a grey, half-sofa
Mood: cheerful
Music: come with me we’ll travel to infinity
YASYCTAI: Have you considered fencing? (90 mins/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Lies and Ties

The original NYC police station

My brother’s in town and he’s helping fix somea the computers here.

Him: Apparently somebody’s been plagiarizing mom’s articles and reprinting them online.
Me: How can you tell?
Him: (laughing) She told me…and she’s a got a folder that’s named, Someone copy my article.

Someone copy my article

Heartgirl told me recently that she doesn’t know what to tell people when they ask what I do for a living. It’s funny, all of the women I dated’ve said the same thing. Most of my friends don’t know.

It’s…complicated, how I make my money.

I’ve a particularly odd skillset but the funny thing’s that I’m very good at a several, seemingly unrelated things. But if I had to sum it up to in one unifying idea, it’s that I collect and process data.

Writing, in fact, is an example of my processing data; I take various disparate concepts, weave them to one (hopefully) coherent argument and distill that to a printed page.

On that note, I’ve gotta pick one of these skillsets sooner than later.

Him: You said you’re in for the next gig.
Me: I’m thinking of being an officer of the court again.
Him: (laughing) They’re no different than us except they wear ties.

Location: 14:00 yest, being told to rinse and spit in Queens (again)
Mood: still sick
Music: The sun in your eyes made some of the lies worth believing

Categories
personal

Tres Vidas

We all have our three lives: Public, Private, and Secret

Madison Square Garden

With nods to Kastinkerbell.

Dated several people who’s favourite book’s 100 Years of Solitude. Tried four times to read it but couldn’t. Not my cup of tea. But the author once said something that I think of often: Uno tiene tres vidas: la vida pública, la vida privada y la vida secreta.

That’s the first thing I thought of when I heard about three lives this past April: Philip Markoff, Susan Boyle, and Russell Dunham. Philip’s this fairly attractive guy with an immense hidden evil. Susan’s this fairly unattractive woman with an immense hidden talent. Russell was a fairly average looking guy with an immense hidden strength.

I lived with a scumbag that murdered his girlfriend. People asked me afterward if we knew that he was capable of such a thing. Always thought that was a stupid question – as if he liked to manically stab at his food when ate.

No, people’re really good at hiding their pretty and their dirty. Alla those little bits of this ‘n that, aggregated over time like piles of crumbs, cemented together by secrets.

It’s only when situations shift that our real selves cut through the chatter – whether that be by choice like Susan and Philip, or by chance like Russell. Our real selves are always there, just waiting.

After the London bombings, some dude quipped something like, “Always wondered how I’d act in a crisis. Turns out I’m rubbish in a crisis.”

It’s totally true. Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.

Me? I’d like to think that my angels’d beat my demons. Ah, but who doesn’t? Nobody wakes up hoping they’re a friend of the Devil.

An ex once said to me, If only your insides matched your outsides.

Do her one better: If only our outsides matched our insides.

Him: So, whatcha gonna do?

Me: (thinking) Dunno yet…

Composite image of Philip Markoff, Susan Boyle, and Russell Dunham

Location: 14:00 yest, being told to rinse and spit in Queens
Mood: satisfied
Music: hard to believe we need a place called hell